Daddy Long-legs
by Bryn Gwyrdd
Summary: An accident leaves Lee unconscious and Amanda in the bosom of Lee's "family" while they hide from pursuers in the Nevada desert. M Chapters will have warnings.
1. Love on the Run

Disclaimer: I do not own of these characters; they are the property of Shoot the Moon Enterprises and Warner Bros. Television. I acknowledge gratefully the hard work of the creators of the series who brought to life characters we like so much we can't let them go.

Dedicated to my long-suffering beta, Lanie Sullivan, who let me take two words and somehow expand them into 20,000 and then kept me on track and in fits of laughter until I was done. Any errors that remain are all mine (and possibly also Microsoft for messing with my files during a transfer).

 **Daddy Long-legs**

"Oh my gosh, this is going to be bad" was one of the last coherent thoughts Amanda had as the car launched into the air. She was right. The rented sedan cleared the flimsy fence that ran down the median of Interstate 80 and landed almost upright in the eastbound lanes. For one brief moment, she thought they'd had a miraculous escape until she realized they hadn't stopped moving, as the car bounced off the ground and began to roll until it went off the far side of the highway and rolled into the shallow irrigation canal that ran parallel to the highway. When all the motion and noise finally stopped, the car was on its side, every window smashed and Amanda could feel the cold water slushing around her body. Even underwater, she could hear Lee calling her name as she struggled to undo her seatbelt. Finally managing it, she sat up and took in a huge gulp of air, then tried to get her bearings and realized Lee was hanging above her, still trapped in his seatbelt, wriggling to get free and swearing ferociously at the taut straps that were keeping him from getting to her.

"Shit! This is why I hate wearing these things! I can't believe I let you talk me into it!"

"And if you hadn't, you'd probably be dead on the side of the road right now so just hush up and let me get at the release button." She reached up, finding it difficult to balance in the lopsided car.

"Stop! Let me brace first or I'll fall on you."

"Good thinking, Batman."

Lee grabbed the window frame and the steering wheel to lift his weight off the seatbelt enough to let her force open the jammed release. Twisting his body, he dropped until he was standing over her as she knelt in the waist deep water. She was feeling around in the foot well before finally hauling her purse out of the water with a crow of triumph, "Got it!"

"Microfilm still in there?" asked Lee and then as she nodded, "Okay, come on, we need to get out of here." Lifting her by the arms, he pushed her out of the shattered windshield before following her out and scrambling after her out of the water and up onto the bank.

"Are you ok?" He was running his hands over her, trying to find any injuries on her but hampered by the dark of the night. "Can you keep moving? Those goons are probably coming back."

"I'm fine, I'm freezing but I'm fine." She was mimicking his actions, but unlike her, he winced in pain when she ran a hand over the left side of his head. "You're hurt! You're bleeding! Let me see."

"Amanda! I'm fine, I just banged my head on the window frame a little while we were rolling. Come on, we need to move before they come back."

"We're in the middle of the desert in the middle of nowhere Nevada – where do you think we're going to go?"

Just as she asked that, they could suddenly hear a voice calling from the highway. "Are you folks alright down there? I saw that maniac run you off the road." A figure scrambled down the embankment and ran towards them. Lee tensed and pushed Amanda behind him, reaching into his jacket for his gun before recognizing the voice was too old to belong to one of Reynolds' thugs. He also realized that this witness may have been the reason they hadn't stopped immediately to come after him and Amanda.

Pulling his hand back out of his jacket, he called back a greeting as the man approached. "We're fine, but the car didn't come out of it too well."

"I can see that." Now that he was closer, they could see in the dim starlight that he was a jean-clad man of about 60, with a cowboy hat in one hand, peering at them with a worried expression. "Are you sure you're ok? You've got a lot of blood on you."

"I do?" Lee lifted his hand to touch his head and then pulled his bloodied hand back to stare at it, realizing the wound must be worse than he thought. "Yeah, I guess I banged my head pretty hard."

"Can you make it back up the hill? I can drive you into Reno to the hospital."

Lee and Amanda exchanged a look of relief. If they could get back to the highway and underway quickly, they would be gone by the time Reynolds' men could get turned around and come back to check on them. "We sure can. Thanks so much for stopping."

With a regretful glance back at the car, knowing they didn't have time to grab any of their belongings, Amanda let Lee guide her back towards the highway. Their new friend took her hand to help her up the hill, Lee scrambling behind them, first up to the eastbound lanes, then up the small hill to the westbound pickup was pulled quite far off the road and as Lee helped Amanda to climb in and watched her slide into the centre of the bench seat, he could see the car that had run them off the road moving slowly along the other side, obviously looking for them. He hoped that the height difference between the lanes on the divided highway might be enough to keep them hidden but as the pickup pulled out, Lee could see the heads in the car swivel in their direction, their attention attracted by the sudden movement of headlights.

 _Shit_ , he thought to himself and frantically tried to remember where the last interchange had been that would allow their pursuers to turn around. A shock of pain ran through him and he became aware Amanda had turned towards him and was prodding his head, trying to see how badly he'd hurt himself. "Amanda! I'm fine – stop fussing!"

"You're not fine! You have a huge bump and you're bleeding like a stuck pig – it's going to need stitches."

"Head wounds bleed a lot – I'm sure it's not as bad as it looks." Actually it hurt like hell and he was having problems concentrating but there was no way he was going to tell her that. They'd be in Reno soon enough and he'd worry about it then. He began doing the math in his head, trying to remember what the last mileage sign had said. He was pretty sure they only had about 30 miles to go, but that might give Reynolds' men time to catch up and now they knew what they were driving.

"I'm Amanda by the way and this is my fiancé Lee," he heard Amanda say. "Thank you so much for stopping. I don't know how long we'd have been out there if you hadn't seen us go off the road."

"Pleasure to meet you Amanda. I'm Cledus Reed. I couldn't believe it when I saw those darn fools run you off the road – what the heck were they playing at?"

"Lee cut them off by accident a few miles back and I think they got mad. I got a licence plate at some point so we'll be reporting them to the police after we get Lee to the hospital."

The story just rolled off her tongue; Amanda's ability to lie on the fly had improved by leaps and bounds over the years, thought Lee ruefully. As Cledus and Amanda continued to chat, Lee felt himself getting more and more nauseated. _I must have hit my head harder than I thought_ , he mused to himself _. I hope we can make it to Reno before those goons catch up because I'm not in any shape to fight them now_.Suddenly, out of the darkness he saw a sign appear in the beam of the truck lights and his heart leapt.

"Did that sign say Rowley was up ahead?" he asked out loud.

"Yep – it's the next turnoff. It's a pretty small town though – it doesn't have a hospital to get your head checked out." Cledus gave a short laugh. "It's really only got one reason to visit, two if you count the truck stop."

"What's that?" asked Amanda interestedly.

"We've got a reason," interrupted Lee just as Cledus started to stammer an answer. "I've got family near there."

Amanda turned to look at him, eyebrows raised. "Family? You have family there?" She knew what that usually meant but it didn't make a lot of sense that he'd have contacts out here.

"Yep" he nodded for emphasis and couldn't hide the wince of pain caused by that movement. "Cledus, if you could just drop us by a payphone, we could be out of your hair and let you be on your way."

"I can do better than that; I can drive you right to your family's house," answered the cowboy readily.

Lee really didn't want him to know where in town they were headed, just in case the goons caught up with him. "No that's fine. It's late and I want to call to let them know we're coming instead of just showing up on the doorstep. Ringing a doorbell this late at night can get you shot around here."

Cledus gave a bark of laughter as he pulled off the highway and onto the main street of Rowley. "You ain't wrong there, boy. But are you sure you don't want me to wait?"

"No, we'll be fine. Look, the all-night truck stop is open, so we have somewhere to wait until my, uh, relatives can come get us. Thanks again for stopping, Sir." He was breathing deeply now, trying to control the dizziness. Amanda had gone very quiet; she knew he was up to something but would wait until they were alone for him to explain.

They waited for the pick-up to disappear back up towards the interstate and then Lee turned his back on town and began walking along a dark road headed out of town. He was having to concentrate to stay in a straight line and it took him a few seconds to realize Amanda was talking to him.

"Lee? Lee, sweetheart, where are we going? We're both soaking wet and it's freezing out here and the town, such as it is, is back there." She sounded concerned and he knew she could see he was having trouble.

"They saw us get in the truck. They're probably following us. We need to find a place to hide." Every step was becoming a battle.

"But where are we going? It's too cold to just hide out in the desert."

"Maggie's" he managed to say, "The Tin Roof"

"Maggie? That's your family? Why do you even have family out here in the middle of nowhere?"

"I'll explain later." He couldn't remember how far past the overpass The Tin Roof was and hoped he hadn't made a mistake sending Cledus on his way. Then, just as he was starting to panic, he saw the painted sign at the end of the driveway. "Thank God," he breathed to himself and started up the familiar path.

The building didn't look like much from the outside, a long low building stretching back from the parking lot with a false front reminiscent of antebellum southern architecture. Now with the end in sight, Lee began to stumble with fatigue and blood loss. Amanda stepped closer, taking some of his weight on her slim frame as they approached the front steps.

The porch lights were off so Lee knew they weren't taking any new customers, but the low lights coming from every window told him that business was still going strong. He walked unsteadily up the steps and swung the front door open. The exterior of the building had given no hint of the luxury of the interior. The lobby was decorated with several comfortable chairs and sofas. Strategically placed screens and plants gave some privacy between the groupings of seats. There was low lighting from the dimmed chandeliers and a roaring fire in the marble hearth gave the room a warm glow. A few men seated around the room looked up disinterestedly as they walked in. Amanda gave a shiver as the warm air hit her and she realized how cold she was. Lee gave no sign of noticing but just continued to lean heavily on her as he walked towards the reception desk. A young girl, no more than 20, looked up as they approached and put out a hand as if to stop them. "I'm sorry, sir, but we can't let you in if you've been drinking. It's against ranch rules." A large young man, obviously working security, started to step out from the office behind the desk.

Lee stopped dead and put his hands out to rest on the counter before lifting his head to look blearily at the girl. Amanda watched as the receptionist leapt to her feet with a look of shocked surprise. A heartbeat later, she was certain that same expression must be on her face as the girl exclaimed, "Oh my god, Daddy, what are you doing here?"

Amanda turned to look at Lee, who smiled faintly at the greeting before saying "Hey Tinkerbell. Where's your mom?" before sliding down the counter and collapsing in a dead heap at her feet.


	2. Woman on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown

Everything after that seemed to be happening simultaneously in slow motion and fast forward to Amanda. The girl had whirled around and begun yelling down the hallway for her mother. The young man had rushed forward to help roll Lee onto his back as Amanda dropped to her knees beside him and began searching for a pulse, relieved when she found it and it was strong.

She looked up to see a well-dressed woman bursting out of a doorway down the hall behind the office and come running towards them. "Julie! What on earth are you shouting the place down about?"

The young receptionist gestured towards Lee and Amanda. "It's Dad – he just walked in and collapsed. He's covered in blood."

The woman knelt down and looked at what Amanda could finally see was a huge gash across Lee's temple and side of the head. "We're going to need to get that stitched up," said the strange woman decisively. "Julie, go tell Sybil we're going to need her as soon as she's available. Paul, go get Kevin– it's going to take two of you to carry him. We'll take him to Norma's room – she's gone all week." Looking around and satisfied that all her orders were being carried out, she looked back down at Lee and said softly "Lee? Lee – you gotta try and wake up, honey. You got this far, don't go giving up on us now."

The young man had returned accompanied by another man as big as himself and following quiet instructions from the woman, they carefully lifted Lee and carried him to a room about three quarters of the way down the long hallway. Amanda followed them, her mind whirling as she tried to understand what was going on. The room they carried him into was plainly decorated compared to the lobby; it contained only a double bed, a small table and chair, and a few decorations, all lit by dim pink bulbs in the wall lights. The woman stepped into the attached bathroom and reappeared with a dampened wash cloth, then began wiping the blood off Lee's face and neck. Amanda stood in the middle of the room for a moment, her confusion and the cold making her helpless, before finally sinking to sit on the end of the bed, watching in silence.

The woman finished getting as much of the blood off as possible, then carefully lifted his head and lay a dry towel under him to keep him off the now damp pillow. She looked up at Amanda and smiled. "That'll do for now. We'll swap pillows after Sybil stitches him up. No point in getting blood all over two of them. But we should get him out of these wet clothes too." As Amanda watched, she began to pull off Lee's shoes and socks, then started on the shirt buttons, rolling him gently to pull it off. When she began to work on his jeans, Amanda got up silently and helped her peel the soaking denim off him. The woman carefully pulled the blankets up to cover him up and then turned to speak. "He'll warm up a bit now that he's out of those. I'll just go…" She trailed off at the strained expression on Amanda's face. "Oh lord, I'm sorry – I just took over and never even said hello. I'm Maggie." She paused for a moment and looked closely at Amanda before a huge smile went across her face. "And you must be Amanda."

If Amanda had been confused by the tornado of information that had hit her since they'd walked in the door, this last statement took the last vestige of clear thought right out of her head. She stared at Maggie, unable to come up with anything more in response than "Yes."

"Well, I'm glad to finally meet you. I've heard a lot about you."

From the tight spot in her chest, Amanda felt the anger taking over. It was all too much – the chase, the crash, and now out of nowhere, this family hidden in the Nevada desert. "I wish I could say the same," she snapped, "but I've never heard of you at all! I don't know who you are, I don't know where I am, I don't know how any of you know Lee except he said we were coming to find some family and there's some girl I've never heard of calling him Dad and you know all about me and now he's… he's..." She trailed off, staring at Lee's pale face on the pillow and the anger dissipated as quickly as it had risen, and she began to cry.

Maggie stepped over to her quickly and wrapped her arms around her. "It's okay, really it is. Look, Lee's going to be fine alone for a few minutes. Come with me – we're going to get you some dry clothes and a strong drink and I'll explain everything to you. It's not anywhere near as bad as you're thinking." She held out a hand to Amanda and pulled her towards the door.

Unable to piece together any kind of response, Amanda wiped her eyes and obediently followed her back down the hallway and through the door she'd seen Maggie emerge from earlier. The rooms behind this door were far more comfortable looking than the bare room they'd left Lee in. This looked more like Amanda's family room and kitchen back in Arlington – brightly lit, cozy sofa and chairs, country-style kitchen, stereo playing softly in the corner. Maggie kept moving through these rooms however, and led Amanda into what must be her own bedroom. Digging around in her dresser, she pulled out a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans and passed them to Amanda before saying "We look like we're pretty much the same size, so these should fit. You get changed and I'll go get you something to drink. Do you want some old-fashioned nerve tonic or would you just prefer a coffee or tea?"

"Just coffee please" murmured Amanda, starting to feel bad that she had yelled at this woman who was being so nice to her.

"Coming right up. Y'all come out when you're ready." Maggie slipped out the door and pulled it quietly shut behind her. Amanda stared at the closed door for a moment, then at the clothes in her hands before slowly pulling off the sodden jeans and turtleneck she was wearing and pulling on the warm, dry replacements. Opening the door, she sidled out shyly and walked back into the kitchen carrying her wet clothes.

"Here, give me those and I'll toss them in the machine." Maggie took them out of her hands and held them up for a moment, taking in the muddy stains. "How on earth did Lee manage to get you both this wet in the middle of Nevada?"

"He rolled our car off the highway and into a creek," answered Amanda with a small smile. "You really must know Lee if you're assuming it was his fault."

"I've known Lee since we were eight years old – you don't need to tell me whose fault it was." Maggie handed her a brimming cup of coffee before turning to walk into the small laundry room off the kitchen. "I forgot to ask how you take it, but I put in a bunch of sugar – it'll help with the shock. There's milk in the jug on the counter"

"The shock of the accident or the shock of finding out someone knew Lee when he was eight years old?" Amanda walked to the counter to add some milk and watched quietly through the door as Maggie turned on the washing machine and then searched through the cupboards, putting together a large stack of clean towels.

"Both, I should think. Okay now, let's go back and check on Lee and I'll finish telling you the whole story. Sybil should almost be done with her party and then we'll get him stitched up and more comfortable."

They walked back down the hall, Amanda taking more time to look around this time. The hallway was long like most hotels with several doors leading off it. She could hear muffled sounds and conversation behind them as they passed, and wondered why everyone at this hotel was awake so late. As they approached the door to the room where Lee was, she saw the young girl from earlier poke her head out around the corner from the lobby.

"Mom!" she hissed. "How is he?"

"I'll let you know after Sybil's checked him over. Are you fine to run the desk for a while longer?"

"Yeah, I guess so." The girl looked disappointed but disappeared back behind the corner.

Lee hadn't moved since they'd left him, but the bleeding from the gash on his head had slowed slightly. Amanda dropped onto the side of the bed and took his hand with a sigh. Maggie put the stack of towels on a small table and sat down in the chair near the end of the bed, watching Amanda carefully as she ran her hand through Lee's hair on the uninjured side of his head and then traced the spot on his cheek where normally there'd be a dimple peeking out. Finally, with a sigh, Amanda turned to look at the woman sitting opposite them.

"I can't tell you why we're here, but you seem to know Lee well enough to not be surprised. But I have no idea who you are or where I am or who that girl is outside who keeps calling Lee…" She stopped talking as Maggie began to laugh.

"Well those are all pretty easy questions: I'm Maggie Field, I've known Lee for over 25 years, you're in Rowley, Nevada at a brothel known as the Tin Roof Ranch and that girl outside is my daughter Julie and despite everything you've heard her say tonight, Lee is not her father."


	3. MASH

Amanda knew her mouth had dropped open as Maggie finished speaking. She stared in stunned silence for several seconds, trying to absorb everything the other woman had just said before her brain seized on the one piece of information that made the least sense.

"Did you say I'm in a brothel?" She could hear her voice squeaking with embarrassment.

Maggie's eyes were twinkling at her over the cup of coffee she was sipping. "Yep. The Tin Roof – it's been here since 1942, although not under the current management."

"The current management?" Amanda knew she was letting herself get derailed from the questions she should be asking but her brain just would not unscramble.

"That would be me. I'm the owner, but it was founded by my grandmother. She set it up when the war broke out and all the army and air force bases started getting built. Had to support our boys in uniform, you know."

Amanda looked around the room they were sitting in and thought back to the walk down the hallway and the muffled sounds she'd heard. She could feel herself blushing as the truth of what Maggie was saying finally began to sink in. She looked back at Lee, lying so still on the bed, and thought how unerringly he had led her here down the dark road from town. The absurdity of the entire situation hit her and she began to laugh, a semi-hysterical giggle where she couldn't quite catch her breath which made it sound vaguely asthmatic. _Like Muttley_ , she thought to herself, which only made her laugh harder before she finally managed to gasp out, "Oh my gosh, Lee has had family in some pretty weird places, but this one takes the cake."

Maggie was still grinning at her from across the room. "Are you sure you wouldn't like some of my snakebite nerve tonic now?"

"No, I think I'm confused enough already. I'll wait until I know Lee's okay before I drink myself out of this."

As if on cue, there was a tap on the door and it opened to reveal a tall brunette peering in. "Maggie? Julie said you needed some help?"

Maggie got to her feet and pulled the door open further. "Hi Sybil. Yes, this is a very old friend of mine and he needs some stitches I think."

The girl stepped into the room and leaned over Lee in the bed. She was dressed in lingerie and a long silky robe – Amanda couldn't imagine what she was supposed to do to help. Sybil looked up at Maggie and nodded. "You're right. Let me go grab my bag and pull on something a little more appropriate." She walked quickly out of the room and disappeared down the hall.

Amanda swivelled to look at Maggie, the question written in her expression.

"Sybil's our resident doctor. She'll be able to stitch him up once she gets her bag."

The answer made no sense to Amanda, but the entire evening was rapidly turning into one long roller-coaster ride so she didn't say anything. It was only a few minutes later when Sybil re-appeared, carrying a medical bag and now dressed in jeans and a t-shirt with a kitchen apron pulled over it all. She quietly began setting up a tray on the bedside table and nodded appreciatively at the stack of clean towels Maggie had brought. "Can you get me a basin of hot water as well?" she asked quietly before walking into the bathroom and spending several minutes washing her hands and lower arms. By the time she was done, Maggie had returned with the basin of water and Sybil pulled the chair over to the edge of the bed and began washing off Lee's head wound. She studied the long diagonal stripe of bruises that were starting to emerge along his chest. "Good thing he was wearing his seatbelt – those bruises are going to hurt but they're better than what could have happened without it." She looked up at Amanda and asked "Are you his family?"

Amanda glanced at Maggie before looking back at Sybil and nodding slowly. "Well, I'm as good as, anyway. I'm Amanda and Lee's my partner." She heard Maggie smother a laugh and wondered again what this woman knew about her.

"Well, my name is Sharon Lincoln and I'm a first year resident at Sacramento General in my regular life, so I'm going to get your friend here cleaned up and stitched up and then I'm going to write you up some prescriptions for antibiotics to get filled in the morning, okay? Just so you know this is all legal."

Amanda nodded, even though she was more confused than ever. "He's allergic to penicillin," she murmured.

"I'll keep that in mind. It's a good thing he's unconscious because this is going to sting like a son of a gun, but once we get this all done, he's going to need to be woken up and then again every few hours because I'm a bit worried about concussion. Can you do that?"

Amanda nodded again, feeling more and more like one of those bobblehead dolls. She watched as the young woman start to work until a thought occurred to her. "Did you say your name is Sharon? I thought it was Sybil?"

The doctor looked up and smiled at her. "My real name is Sharon. My working name here at the Ranch is Sybil, because you know, she's quite a different part of my life."

"Your working name? You work…here? I thought you said you were a doctor!" Amanda was suddenly very nervous about letting this woman anywhere near Lee.

Sharon shrugged and traded looks with Maggie before answering as she continued to work on Lee, "A girl's gotta pay off her student loans somehow and medical school was expensive. I'm not here regularly, just the odd weekend when I can get away. Maggie lets me lease one of the rooms and I clear an extra couple hundred bucks to keep my head above water." She put in the last stitch and stood up, beginning to put away her supplies back into her bag. "Alright, now let's see if we can get him to come to. He'll probably respond to a familiar voice best – do you want to try?"

Amanda scooted forward eagerly and began lightly patting Lee's cheek. "Lee? Sweetheart? Can you wake up for me?" There was no response at first but then he slowly began to twitch.

"That's good," said Sharon. "He's trying to wake up. Keep talking to him."

Amanda continued to cajole him, patting his cheek gently as she did so. "Sweetheart, wake up. I need you to wake up."

Finally she saw his eyes begin to move under his lids as he struggled to come to. "Manda?" he muttered thickly.

"Lee, you need to open your eyes. Can you do that?" She watched as he fought to do what she asked and to her infinite relief, he finally managed to open his eyes halfway and stare up at her with a puzzled expression.

"Manda? What's happened? Where are we?"

Praying it was just temporary confusion, she answered him softly. "We got run off the road. You hit your head and now we're at Maggie's."

"Maggie's? Maggie who?"

"Thanks a lot, Lee," laughed the woman in question for her perch across the room.

He turned his head to see where the voice was coming from and peered through the dim light before his eyes widened as he recognized her. "Maggie? What are you doing here?"

"I live here – what's your excuse?" she asked as she stood up and came closer to squeeze his outstretched hand.

Lee stared at her owlishly for a moment before closing his eyes, obviously trying to remember. "My head hurts," was all he managed to come up with.

"I bet it does," said Sharon. "Do you know where you are?"

"It must be The Tin Roof?" He didn't sound like he was sure but at least it was the right answer.

"And what year is it?"

That took him longer. "1987 I think."

Sharon had brought out some individual foil packets from her medical bag. "Well, he's with it enough to get those right, so he probably doesn't have a serious concussion. Amanda, we're going to let him go back to sleep right after he's had some of these pain killers but I'm going to come back in a few hours to check on him. We'll wake him up again then, okay?" She sat back down on the edge of the bed and encouraged Lee to lift his head long enough to take a pill and wash it down with a glass of water held to his lips. Amanda knew his head must really be hurting when he didn't even try to resist it.

As soon as he was back on the pillow, they could see him giving into sleep without a struggle. Amanda continued to sit by him, stroking his hair with a worried expression until his hand relaxed in hers and she was sure he was fully asleep.

She looked up as Sharon began to speak to her. "How are you Amanda? You were in the same accident, right?"

"I'm fine. I mean I'm stiff and I think I'm going to have matching seatbelt bruises but I'm not bleeding anywhere."

"Well, come and find me right away if you start to feel unwell at all or if Lee's condition changes, ok? I'm here all weekend. I'll leave some extra painkillers for you because if you feel stiff now, you're going to be way more miserable by tomorrow."

"Thank you so much. I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't been here." Sharon acknowledged her thanks with a smile and slipped back out of the room.

Maggie watched Amanda for a moment before asking "Do you want to stay with him or do you want to come back to my rooms and get something to eat? He's going to be out for a while and we can talk more comfortably at the kitchen table."

Amanda felt the sting of tears coming again at the kind tone. As she tried to decide what to do, her stomach growled loudly and both women began to laugh. "I guess I need something to eat," she answered, getting to her feet.

"Food first, then stories." Maggie went to the door and leaned out to see if it was clear. "You go make yourself comfortable. I'm just going to go let Julie know Lee's okay."

Amanda found herself back in the private quarters, standing indecisively in the middle of the room. An aging border collie got up from its bed in the corner and wandered over to her, pushing its hand into her hand, obviously looking to be petted. "Hey boy, what's your name?" she crooned at him as he wagged his tail and leaned into her leg. She couldn't resist wandering over to the bookshelf and studying the photos scattered in frames everywhere. There were many of Maggie and Julie, who looked more like sisters, some black and white photos of a woman who Amanda decided must the grandmother Maggie described and one of a couple that had to be at least twenty years old, based on the woman's style of dress. The man in the photo was wearing an Air Force uniform and Amanda began to guess how Maggie might have known Lee for so long. Finally her eye was drawn to two photos on a low shelf. The first was of a trio of teenagers, two boys and a girl. The girl was a much younger Maggie, laughing up into the face of the young man whose arms were wrapped around her with a huge smile on his face. The second young man, standing slightly to the side, head thrown back in laughter, was Lee. The second photo, which she couldn't resist picking up, was Lee again, slightly older, maybe mid-twenties, but this time it was a photo of him laying on lounge chair in bright sunshine, with a young girl about seven years old, curled up on his lap. Both of them were laughing as it was obvious the photo had been taken mid-tickle. Amanda recognized the child as Julie and bit her lip, remembering that moment out in the lobby when the young girl first realized it was Lee. Maggie had said he wasn't Julie's father but this picture certainly suggested otherwise.

"I wasn't lying, you know. He's really not her dad – it's just a nickname."


	4. Boys and Girls and Girls

Amanda jumped so much at Maggie's voice that she almost dropped the photo, catching it in mid-air, then placing it carefully back on the shelf before turning towards Maggie, thoroughly embarrassed. "I'm sorry – I was snooping."

"Comes with being a spy." Amanda knew the surprise must show on her face as Maggie grinned. "Don't look so worried. That's one thing about madams – we know how to keep secrets." Amanda found herself smiling back at the teasing tone. Her stomach growled again and Maggie started to laugh. "Come on, let's get you fed and then I'll tell you the whole sordid story."

Ten minutes later, they were seated at the kitchen table, Amanda wolfing down a sandwich with the dog – who'd been introduced as Bandit - curled at her feet while Maggie leaned back in her chair and asked "So where do I begin?"

"Let's start at the very beginning," Amanda couldn't help herself.

"A very good place to start," Maggie half sang the line back to her. "I love that movie. Saw it in the theatre nine times."

"Seven for me."

"Alright, the very beginning it is then." Maggie leaned back in her chair and looked at the ceiling to gather her thoughts before starting to speak. "I was an Air Force brat like Lee and we first met in third grade when we were both living on the same base. We got to be friends because we both knew what it was like to always be the new kid. That would have been the late '50s, I guess. He used to come and hang out at our quarters a lot. I liked to pretend that it was because we were such good friends, but really I think he just wanted to hang around my mom. He missed his parents so much and his uncle was always so busy…" She trailed off and then gave Amanda a quick glance. "You've met him – you know what he's like."

Amanda rolled her eyes in agreement – at this point, she wasn't even going to question how Maggie knew she'd met Lee's uncle.

"So we were pretty close then but eventually my dad got posted somewhere else and we lost touch. And then when we were 15, my dad got posted to Beale in California and it turned out Lee and his uncle were there already. We didn't even realize it at first until I started dating Tommy – they were best friends and the three of us went everywhere together."

"Is that Tommy in the photo?" Amanda nodded her head towards the shelf.

"Yeah. That's the only photo I kept of him."

Amanda began to see the light. "He's Julie's father?"

Maggie sighed. "Yeah. I was sixteen, he was seventeen." She paused as they both laughed at the Sound of Music coincidence, but then she gave a deep sigh and went on. "I was young and naïve and I thought we'd be together forever but he couldn't get away from me fast enough when he found out I was pregnant. Lee had a huge fight with him about it. You know what Lee's like – a protective streak a mile wide"

"And a mile deep." Amanda smiled faintly in agreement and waited for her to go on.

So despite everything Lee did to get him to take responsibility, he wouldn't help me. He'd just been accepted to USC and all he could see was his future disintegrating so he took off for the east coast for the summer and I never saw him again. And then my father found out and kicked me out of the house."

"Really?" Amanda couldn't imagine such a thing; she knew her own father would never have done that if she'd ever found herself in that position.

"Yeah, it was pretty scary but Lee spent all his summer job money putting me up in a local motel until we could figure out what to do."

Amanda couldn't help smiling. "That sounds like him. So what did you do?"

"Eventually my mom tracked me down and arranged for me to go live with her mother. Turns out my oh-so-uptight dad had married a girl he met in a Nevada cathouse and I guess he decided like mother, like daughter. I'd never questioned why we didn't seem to have any family on my mom's side until then." She sighed again and stared into her coffee cup. "Lee drove me all the way from Beale to here to make sure I was safe but my grandmother took me in with open arms and I've been here ever since. Julie was born the next spring and I stayed here to help my grandma run the ranch. She never let me work as one of the girls, but she taught me everything she knew about managing the place. When she died in a car accident when I was 22, I inherited the entire operation. And here we are."

"So you and Lee have been friends all this time?"

"Yes and no. He went off to school too – he was pretty good about staying in touch at first but it was hard, and he got involved in his new line of work, so we drifted apart. I wasn't surprised – he was young and I wasn't much fun to be around with a toddler underfoot and stuck out in the middle of nowhere."

"But you're still close."

"Yeah we are. A few years after I inherited the Ranch, I went into Reno on business and I went into a bar for a drink and found Lee in there, trying to drink himself to death. Something had gone wrong on one of his missions and he'd lost someone close to him. He was supposed to be on leave and he was on his way out to California to visit his uncle but he'd decided to stop and get drunk instead and then he never stopped drinking. 24 years old and he was halfway to a future as the town drunk."

"He was 24? That must have been late 1974." Amanda could suddenly see it all very clearly.

Maggie nodded and continued the story. "So I picked him up, threw him in my truck and dragged his ass back here. Told him he could stay here for as long as he needed to as long as he didn't drink. He took me up on it, stayed here for two months getting dry, and helping with security." She looked up, bemused as Amanda gave a sudden choke of laughter.

"Sorry. I just had a mental image of a young Lee Stetson worked security at a brothel." A look of awe came over her face. "That must have been like, like…" she paused, unable to come up with the right words.

"The fox guarding the henhouse?" supplied Maggie, starting to cackle. "Oh lord, you can't even imagine! I couldn't keep the girls away from him – he didn't even have to do anything, just smile. And it didn't get any better – the more he learned from the girls, the more popular he got. I don't even know how he was walking by the time he left here." She stopped abruptly as she realized who she was talking to. "Oh my god, I'm sorry – you don't want to hear that."

Amanda tried to maintain a straight face but finally gave up and burst out laughing. "It's nice to know he was a good student at something. Such a good, _good_ student. I mean, he could write a thesis."

The two of them began to laugh harder, unable to look at each other without starting again. It was several minutes before they could catch their breath, Amanda finally wiping the tears from her cheeks and taking in a deep breath in an effort to calm down. "If you ever see any of those girls, tell them thank you from me."

Maggie managed to get her breath back as well. "Well, when he wasn't being flirted with by the big girls, he was being flirted with by the littlest girl. He and Julie fell in love at first sight – she hung around him from the time she got up in the morning until she went to bed at night except for school, and he was more than willing to let her tag along. He was really more babysitter than guard around here – he spent more time reading her stories and watching old movies with her than he did with the working girls. I think she's the only reason he stayed sober."

"So is that why she calls him Daddy?"

"Sort of. Julie went through a phase when she was little where she wanted to be a dancer and she used to watch all these old Fred Astaire movies and her favourite was 'Daddy Long-Legs' because the girl in that movie was called Julie too. The Fred Astaire character was this sort of fairy godfather and she said that's what Lee was like, so she started calling him Daddy. And then he said that if he was a fairy godfather, she must be a fairy, so he started calling her..."

"Tinkerbell" finished Amanda, remembering their arrival only hours before. "He called her that when we first got here."

"Yeah." Maggie stared off into space for a moment. "She really missed him when he finally went back to Washington, but he was much better about staying in touch with her than he'd ever been with me. Remembered all the birthdays, the Christmases – he even came to her high school graduation last year."

"He did?" Amanda cast her mind back to the previous spring and had a sudden memory of a more-than-usually evasive Lee making excuses to get out of something Billy had wanted him to do because he was going to be out of town. She'd been busy with end-of-year school activities with Philip and Jamie and hadn't given it much thought at the time but suddenly saw it all in a new light. "I wonder why he didn't tell me?"

"I imagine he had second thoughts about telling a woman he'd just started dating that he was off to spend the weekend in a Nevada cathouse," Maggie said dryly. "And keeping secrets is a pretty hard habit to break. But I've been dying to meet you ever since then – he was more like his old self than I'd seen him in years, maybe even since high school."

"He told you about me?" Amanda wasn't quite sure what to make of that since he'd never said a word about Maggie or Julie to her.

"Not really – he said he was dating someone new but he mentioned your name a couple of times and it was like the sun came out. It was pretty obvious who the new woman was and how happy he was."

Amanda couldn't help blushing – it was strange to hear someone talking so openly about her and Lee when they'd been secretive for so long but at the same time it was exhilarating to have someone she could talk to about him. "Well, he makes me pretty happy too."

"I can see that," said Maggie, nodding at the ring on Amanda's left hand. "Congratulations are in order, I see."

"Oh no!" Amanda jumped and went to hide her hand reflexively. She'd forgotten that she'd taken advantage of the trip to get to wear her engagement ring. She looked up to find Maggie looking at her with arched brows and suddenly found herself plunging on, throwing all caution to the winds. "I mean, yes, but nobody knows. I have kids, two boys, Philip and Jamie, and they've only just met Lee because what we do can be dangerous and we were worried about something happening to them if anyone made the connection and so we thought we'd just get married secretly for now and figure out how to let them get to know Lee and how to keep them safe later."

There was a long silence until Maggie said "That sounds like the dumbest idea ever. I mean, I'm sorry, but that is a terrible, terrible idea. No need to tell me who came up with that one – that has Lee written all over it."

Amanda gave a slightly hysterical laugh. "I know – I don't know what we were thinking but it's gone a bit too far and we're kind of dug in, so we figure we'll just go ahead with it for now and decide out how to fix it later."

"Well, good luck with that." Maggie looked up as the door to the hallway opened and Sharon appeared.

"Hey Mags. I just checked on Lee and he's doing okay for now but he is running a slight fever so I think there's probably a low-grade infection starting up. I've brought you some prescriptions, Amanda, to get filled tomorrow. The local pharmacy probably doesn't have the non-penicillin versions though so you'll need to go into Reno to fill them at one of the big stores. I'll come check on him first thing in the morning, but right now, I am going to go hit the hay."

"Thank you so much, Sharon – I don't know what we would have done without you here."

"I'm just glad I was in the right place at the right time." Sharon gave her a tired smile and waved as she whisked back out the door.

"I hadn't realized it was so late. You must be exhausted," said Maggie sympathetically. "Now where do you want to sleep? I've got a spare room in here which might be a bit quieter, but based on the look on your face, I'm going to assume you'd rather be in the other room with Lee. Come on, let me find you something to sleep in." She grinned as Amanda's eyes went wide. "Don't look so worried – I have more flannel nighties than lingerie."

"I'm sorry – was I that obvious?" Amanda was really flustered, worried that she'd offended this new friend.

"I'd have been more shocked if you hadn't been, but don't let it worry you – you can't do much that would embarrass me after all these years here. I've seen everything." Maggie had gone into her bedroom and reappeared with both a nightgown and a pair of pajamas. "There you go – spoilt for choice. Now let's go see how Lee is."

Lee was looking peaceful and his colour looked better but as Amanda lay her hand on his forehead, she could feel the fever Sharon had mentioned. He did turn into her hand though when she spoke to him, with a slight smile in his sleep which gave her some relief.

Maggie nodded at him approvingly. "He does look better. Now, do you want to stay with him tomorrow morning and let me run into Reno to get those prescriptions filled, or shall we let Julie babysit him for a change?"

"I'll come with you – I need to get hold of people and tell them where we are. We've already missed some check-ins but a few more hours aren't going to make any difference at this point. They log the calls though and I'm not sure the Agency would entirely approve of getting calls from here."

Maggie gave a bark of laughter. "Probably not. Alright. I'll come get you around 7 – we can be back and forth to Reno by 9:30 – he might not even know you've been gone if he's still out of it."

"Thank you. Thank you for everything." Amanda was on the verge of tears now, teetering between relief and exhaustion as the stresses of the day began to catch up with her.

"No problem. See you in the morning."

After Maggie's departure, Amanda pulled on the nightgown she'd loaned her and went into the bathroom. To her relief there was a small bottle of mouthwash – she might have lost her toothbrush again but at least she could get rid of the fuzzy mouth feeling – and stared at herself in the mirror. "Amanda King – you have dome some pretty weird things in some pretty weird places since you met Lee Stetson but never in a million years did I picture you ever curling up in bed with him in a brothel. Why on earth did you ever take that package?"

She stepped out of the bathroom and walked across the room to climb onto the bed with Lee. Then, as she dropped her arm around him and listened to his heart beating steadily in his chest, she thought "Thank god I did" and fell asleep almost instantly.


	5. On the Road to Reno

It seemed all too soon when Amanda was woken by the light tap on the door that signalled it was already morning. After the initial moment of waking up in a strange bed – which she still wasn't used to even after all these years – she turned immediately to check on Lee, groaning as the aches and pains of the accident hit her. He was still sleeping but more lightly; he was flushed and she could feel the fever had increased slightly but wasn't too bad yet. Slipping from the bed to open the door, she greeted Maggie with a tired smile.

"How is he?" asked Maggie immediately as she handed Amanda her now-clean clothes.

"He slept well but I'll be glad to get those prescriptions filled – I think there's definitely some infection setting in."

"Well, I'm ready to go whenever you are – there's coffee and muffins in the kitchen."

Amanda quickly turned to get dressed, glad to be back in her own clothes, but making a mental note to ask Maggie to stop somewhere she could pick up some new underwear and bra. She thought sadly about her bag that was probably still sitting in the car trunk in the irrigation canal somewhere off the highway and then gave a start as she remembered the reason for the crash. Turning around quickly, she looked for her purse, and heaved a sigh of relief when she found it on the floor under the chair.

Leaning over Lee, she ran a hand over the stitches and watched him wince in response, the furrows on his brow telling her he was still feeling some pain, even in his sleep. Filling a glass of water, she ripped open one of the foil packets Sharon had left the night before and gently stroked his cheek until he opened his eyes.

"Lee, sweetheart, I want you to take this for me – it'll make your head hurt less," she cajoled him in the same tone she'd used many times on the boys.

Lee stared at her, with the confused expression that told her he wasn't really completely with it. She put an arm around him and encouraged him to sit up. He took the pill obediently and then finished the glass of water as well. She wondered if he was feeling dehydrated with blood loss and added that question to the list of things to ask Sharon later. She shook her head thinking about the doctor/prostitute she'd met the night before; it was hard to believe that anyone could be so strapped for money they'd willingly sign up for this but Sharon had seemed so nonchalant about it.

As she watched Lee settle back down on the pillow with a sigh of relief, she leaned forward to caress his cheek. "Lee? I'm going out for a while to get you some medicine and call Billy, ok?"

"Okay, Manda," he muttered. "Don't want to get up yet."

"Alright then, I'll be back as quick as I can. Julie's going to look after you while I'm gone."

"Tink's here? Yeah, I can look after Tink."

"Yes, Tink's here and I'll be back soon." Amanda could tell from his responses that there was a pretty good chance he wasn't taking any of this in, but she knew Julie would fill him in if he woke up before she got back. She dropped a kiss on his forehead and slipped out of the room. She found Maggie pouring a cup of coffee for her and took it gratefully.

"I can make something more substantial for breakfast if you'd like, but I thought we could just take a bag of muffins with us in the car if you want to get back here quicker."

"Breakfast on the go sounds perfect. Lee woke up enough to take a painkiller but I don't think he understood anything I said to him." She looked up as Julie walked out of her bedroom and stood watching her shyly. "Hi, I'm Amanda. We didn't really get properly introduced last night."

She watched with some amusement as Julie smiled back with the same slightly embarrassed and wary look that Jamie still gave Lee from time to time.

"I was just telling your mom that Lee's still asleep but I got him to wake up enough to take a pain pill. If you could check on him while we're gone, I'd really appreciate it and if he wakes up, just tell him I've gone to call Billy. He'll know what that means."

Julie seemed reassured by Amanda's friendliness. "I have to work on my term paper for my Economics 101 course anyway so if it's okay with you, I'll just work at the table in his room. That way if he wakes up before you get back, he won't be alone."

"That would be great. He's pretty out of it, so don't be surprised if he's confused if he does wake up. He can have another pill in three hours but I hope we're not gone that long." She turned to Maggie, "Let's get this show on the road."

They were quiet for a few minutes as Maggie negotiated the road down from the Ranch and onto the Interstate headed west towards Reno, but finally Amanda couldn't contain her curiosity any longer. "So how does a girl like Sharon get from medical school to somewhere like The Tin Roof?"

"Well, she was studying at the University of Nevada and it's only about half an hour down the road." Maggie gave Amanda a sideways look and started to laugh at her stunned expression. "I'm sorry I couldn't resist. Seriously though, the girls come from all over, some because they didn't finish school and this is the best money they can make, some of them are like Sharon and just work part-time to make extra money. Maybe when you grow up around it, it doesn't seem that odd."

"So do they all live at the ranch?"

"Some do. Frances, Nora, and Smokey all do but Sharon, Carrie and Norma sublet rooms from me and come and go as they please. Norma – that's whose room you're in - she's away this week because she's in Alabama doing some research work on her grad thesis."

"Really?"

"Yes, she's our resident feminist. She got politically involved in high school over the ERA, and now she's doing her thesis on something to do with the unionization of woman textile workers in the post-war south." She looked over at Amanda and went on, "Don't ask me to explain it – I tune out most of the time when she's trying to explain it over breakfast."

"That's not as hard to understand as the idea of a feminist prostitute to be honest."

"Well, feminism doesn't pay the bills like two or three parties a night does," cracked Maggie.

"Parties? Is that what you call it?" Amanda couldn't help being fascinated by this insight into a profession she never thought she'd know that much about.

"The men are dates and the time they spend with the girls is a party. It helps everybody pretend that it's not so commercial, I guess, and the men get to tell themselves the girls are having more fun than they actually are."

"You seem pretty clinical about it," remarked Amanda mildly, although inside she was squirming.

"It's a pretty clinical business behind all the fake fronts," shrugged Maggie. "But it's kept me and Julie above water all these years and it's gone some way to making sure she could go to college. She's getting her Business Management degree at UNR," she finished, maternal pride obvious in her voice

"I ended up becoming a spy to keep my boys in league baseball," grinned Amanda.

"Turns out there were other perks though," Maggie shot her a look, smiling as she watched the blush creep up Amanda's face.

"Yes, there were," she agreed. "The overtime is great."

"I bet it is," answered Maggie wryly.

Fifteen minutes later, Maggie pulled into the parking lot of a Walgreens on the outskirts of Reno. The pharmacist looked over the prescriptions and looked back up at her. "The patient is allergic to penicillin, I take it? We don't see these too often." Amanda nodded and he went on, "It's going to take me a little longer to make these up because they don't come pre-packaged like the regular stuff, and I need to check the register since the prescribing doctor is out of state. It's going to be at least half an hour."

"No problem. I wanted to go over to the K-Mart anyway."

She went back outside to where Maggie was leaning on the car, soaking in the warmth of the winter sun. "It's going to be a few minutes so I thought I'd pop across the street and get some more clothes and stuff since everything I own is at the bottom of a canal somewhere."

"That sounds like a plan. I have some things I need to pick up for the Ranch anyway so I'll come with you."

They continued to chat as they quickly shopped for everything they needed. Amanda picked up some extra clothes for Lee as well as herself and then tossed toothbrushes and a shaving kit in her basket. They were in and out of the store in under twenty minutes and as they walked back to the pharmacy, Amanda glanced at her watch and then looked around for a payphone.

"I need to call in to the office. We haven't checked in since last night and if we miss a third one, our boss will be calling out the national guard."

"Alright, see you in a minute." As Maggie walked back to put their bags in the car, Amanda walked to the end of the building to the bank of payphones. Pulling out her wallet, she found the laminated card with the toll-free number to the Agency and dialled in. Hearing the familiar bored tones of the Agency operator asking for her identification, she launched into the codes. "This is agent check-in for Alpha-Kilo-nine-nine. Cheque is in the mail and –".

Suddenly she heard a clicking sound as if the line had gone dead and she wondered if she had been cut off somehow. She was just reaching up to press the lever to hang up and call back when a familiar voice boomed down the phone line.

"Amanda! Is that you? Are you all right? Where the hell are you?" Billy sounded frantic with worry, far more than he should considering how little time they'd been out of touch.

"I'm in a Walgreens parking lot in Reno, sir and I'm fine. I'm sorry we missed a few check-ins but we got a bit delayed. We have the microfilm though."

"At the moment, I don't really give a damn about the microfilm, I'm just glad to hear you're both okay." There was a pause and then he asked more quietly, "Wait, why are you calling? Where's Lee?"

"He's back at – well, he's somewhere safe, but he has a head injury and can't be moved just yet. Sir, we've only missed two check-ins – why are you so worried already?"

"Normally I wouldn't be, but right after you missed the first one, Nevada Highway Patrol contacted us because your car was found smashed up at the bottom of an irrigation canal and no sign of either of you. They've been dredging the canal all night."

"Oh my gosh – we never thought of that. We got run off the road by some of Reynolds' men but someone was driving by and picked us up. I'm sorry I didn't even think of calling until now."

Billy had started to chuckle with relief. "We know you got run off the road – we have those goons in custody already. They confessed at the hospital – that's how the NHP found your car so fast."

Amanda couldn't keep up with what Billy was saying. "In the hospital? They weren't injured – why were they in a hospital?"

"Seems they found some cowboy they thought had picked you up and followed him into a parking lot in Reno thinking he was leading them to you. Turns out they'd followed him to his local honky-tonk and when they started in on him, the whole place emptied out into the parking lot to help him – they barely got away with their lives from the sounds of it. They practically begged to be taken into custody just to get away from the mob."

"Oh my gosh," repeated Amanda "Was it Cledus? Is he alright?"

"He's fine but we didn't realize there was a connection to the two of you until after he'd been released from the emergency room and Reynolds' guys didn't even know if he'd picked you up or not."

"He did pick us up, but we got out before Reno. Lee had some family outside of town and I guess he thought it would be a better place to hide out and get help. He hit his head in the accident and he's been unconscious pretty much since last night."

There was suddenly a lot of extra noise at Billy's end of the line and she realized she could hear Francine's voice speaking loudly. "Billy! We just got a hit on Amanda's credit card being used in Reno – do you want me to send local police over to check it out?"

"No, that's not necessary. Hang on a second, Amanda."

There was a click and then the line went slightly fuzzy as Billy put her call on speakerphone.

"Amanda! Are you okay? Where are you?"

"I'm fine, Francine, I'm in Reno. The credit card hit was just me getting some replacement clothes because all I have is what I'm standing up in."

"Where are you? We can send someone to collect you. Wait a minute, isn't Lee with you?"

"Francine, calm down, we're fine. Lee has a bad bump on the head and we're both bruised but we're fine." Amanda couldn't help smiling at how quickly Francine lost the tough-as-nails façade when she was worried about them. "And you don't need to send anyone. We're with a friend of Lee's and once he can be moved, I'll get him back into town and we'll come home."

It was Billy's turn to speak again. "If you're not both in Reno, where are you? The last time you checked in, you were in Salt Lake and according to this map, there is a whole lot of nothing between there and Reno."

"It's, um, a pretty small town about thirty miles out of town. You know the Agency maps aren't always that great so it's probably not even on it" hedged Amanda. She really didn't want to tell them where they were staying – Francine would never let her live it down. She thanked her lucky stars it had occurred to her not to phone from the ranch; she could only imagine the security review if she'd called in from the phone number of a known house of ill-repute.

"Well, this military map is pretty detailed so…" she heard Billy trail off and then he started to chuckle. "Amanda, are you and Lee where I think you are?"

"I'm sure I couldn't say, sir." She could hear Billy's chuckles turning into full-blown wheezes and realized that somehow he did know.

"Let's put it this way, how upset would you be if I told, say, Francine, where I think you are?"

"Well, Sir I imagine about as upset as you'd be if I told Jeanie you knew immediately where we are with only one piece of information to go on." She couldn't believe she'd just given him such a smart-ass answer and held her breath until she heard him start to laugh and then Francine starting to ask him what was going on.

"Fine. You're safe where you are then. When do you think Lee will be able to move?"

"He's been seen by a doctor and I'm just picking up some prescriptions for the infection he's developed. We're still waiting to see if he has a concussion so I'm not going to put him on a plane until I'm certain."

"That's fine. Do you have the microfilm with you now?"

"Yes sir, but it's probably covered in dirty water from the accident."

"Alright – there's an FBI office in Reno and the Agency contact there is Eddie Dodd. Can you drop it there while you're in town and they can get it shipped here? Then there's no rush for you to get back."

"Yes sir, I can." She pulled a pen from her purse and scribbled the address Billy dictated to her onto the back of her hand. "Thank you sir. Sorry we worried you."

"I'm just glad you're both alright. Give me a call in a day and let me know how Lee is. And Amanda? Tell Maggie hello from me." Billy's warm laugh echoed down the line.

Amanda hung up and leaned forward to rest her head on the payphone for a moment, laughing but still slightly uncomfortable at the idea Billy knew about the Tin Roof. She heard approaching footsteps and looked up to find Maggie beside her.

"Are you alright? You look like you got bad news."

"No, just our boss figured out where we were and I'm a little embarrassed. He says hello by the way."

Maggie looked intrigued. "Who's your boss?"

"Billy Melrose – do you know him?"

"Of course I do." Maggie started to laugh at Amanda's shocked expression. "It is way too easy to tease you, Amanda King. Who do you think came and dragged Lee back to Washington 10 years ago?"

"Honestly, at this point, nothing would surprise me anymore. This has been the most educational two days of my life."

Maggie held up a white paper bag. "I got the prescriptions – are you ready to head back?"

"Not quite. I need to find the FBI office to drop something off for Billy first. I've got the address here." She held out her hand.

"No problem, I know where it is. Some of our best customers are FBI agents." She gave Amanda a wink and turned back to the car, chuckling, "Way, way too easy to tease."

"Another couple of days and I'll be impervious to it," laughed Amanda.

"Better not be. I think Lee would probably never speak to me again if I make you a hard-bitten moll like me."

Both women were still giggling as they drove out of the parking lot.


	6. Awakenings

Lee was awake for a while before he opened his eyes. He could feel that he was in a comfortable bed and he knew his head hurt but for the moment, that's as far as he'd gotten. He tried to think how he'd ended up here but he could only get little snatches of memory, like a strobe light going off behind his eyelids. 'There's been a car crash,' he thought, 'and I was in the water.' He thought about that for a moment and decided that didn't make sense because there's no water in the desert. 'Right, I was in the desert and the car crashed and what else? There was an old man, and a dark road and someone was talking to me.'

There was an odd whining sound beside his head and opening his eyes to see what it was, he found himself staring straight into the dark brown eyes of a mournful looking border collie.

"Bandit?" he said out loud and was rewarded with a wriggling dog jumping forward to lick his face vigorously. "Bandit! Cut it out! Yes, I'm glad to see you too but get off!"

"He's just glad you finally decided to wake up," said a voice near the foot of the bed.

Lee rolled himself into a sitting position, trying to ignore the way of nausea that caused and squinted at the figure at the table silhouetted against the window. "Tink? What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing, Mr. Drop-dead-in-the-lobby-and-frighten-me-half-to-death." Julie got up from the table where she'd been working on her homework. "You just came in out of the night, covered in blood, and fell over."

More bits and pieces of the previous night began to come back to him. He lifted a hand to his head and winced as he touched the stitches. "Sorry about that. I'm not even sure how I made it here."

"Hang on, Dad, let me get you a pain killer – you're allowed another one by now." She got up and walked to the bathroom. "As for how you got here, Amanda was half-carrying you by the time you hit the lobby."

"Oh my God! Amanda! Where is she?" Lee looked around frantically as if he could have somehow missed her in the tiny room. The full horror of realizing he had dragged Amanda into a brothel with no explanation hit him all at once.

Julie's voice was muffled by the bathroom door. "She's gone to Reno with Mom to get some stuff for you. She should be back any minute now." She didn't realize that when she'd turned on the tap to fill the glass of water, she'd drowned out the sound of her voice and all Lee heard was "She's gone." She walked back out of the bathroom to find him standing in the middle of the room pulling on his jeans.

"Where the hell do you think you're going? Get back in that bed," she scolded him.

"Language, Little Girl. And I'm not getting back in that bed until I find Amanda and explain." Lee finally spotted his shoes on the floor by the window and pulled them on, then raced out of the room, Julie and Bandit in hot pursuit.

He ran down the hallway and burst into the private quarters. Several pairs of startled eyes looked up at him as the girls who had gotten up for breakfast lounged around the kitchen and seating area. Somebody gave a wolf whistle which Lee ignored. He scanned the room, looking for the one face he wanted.

"Amanda?" he called out hopefully.

"I'll be Amanda if you want me to be," said one of the girls in a hopeful tone.

"Not in a million years," answered Lee automatically.

"Lee, what are you doing out here?" asked a concerned voice.

He turned with relief towards the person speaking, only to be disappointed when he didn't recognize the slim brunette in a short robe walking towards him with her hand held out.

"Who are you?" he asked, stepping backwards as she approached.

"Don't you remember? My name's Sharon – we met last night. You really shouldn't be out here, let's get you back to bed."

Lee stared at her, horrified. "Last night?" he repeated hoarsely and then suddenly had a clear memory of this woman leaning over him in the dim light of the room he'd just left, looking into his eyes and speaking to him softly. He continued to back away from her as she approached.

"No!" he whispered almost to himself. "No, no, no - I wouldn't have done that to Amanda." He turned to Julie who had followed him into the room. "Where did you say Amanda went?"

"Mom gave her a ride into Reno about two hours ago. She said –"

"Do you have a car I can borrow? You bought that little Civic to get to school, right?" Lee ran over and began searching through the key rack by the back door. "I have to find her." He grabbed a set of Honda keys and went out the back door before Julie could stop him.

"Oh for heaven's sake!" muttered Julie, following him outside. "Daddy, would you just stop and listen for a minute?"

Lee stopped dead as if he'd been shot and turned back to her with an anguished expression. "Did you call me that in front of her?"

"Yes, but…"

"Oh my god, no wonder she left me. How am I going to get her to believe the truth?" He turned and looked around the parking lot until he spotted Julie's little car by the garage and headed for it. She ran after him, trying to grab the keys out of his hands, Bandit dancing around their legs barking with excitement. Sharon was now at the back door, hopping up and down as she tried to pull on sneakers to help.

Lee and Julie were still fighting for the keys when Maggie's car pulled into the driveway. She hadn't even come to a full stop before Amanda was out of the car and running across the parking lot.

"Lee! What are you doing out here?"

Lee turned so fast at the sound of her voice that he almost fell over before striding toward her to wrap his arms around her in a bear hug embrace, almost weeping with relief. "Oh Amanda, I thought you'd left me. Tink said you'd gone."

"I didn't say you'd gone, I said you'd gone to Reno and he freaked out. Honestly, Daddy, you have got to learn to listen better."

"Yeah Daddy – you really need to listen better. You should have known I wouldn't ever leave you." Amanda was laughing up at him, especially when the guilty expression went across his face.

"I can explain…"

"Too late, Big Fella. I've already heard Maggie's version and I bet it's a lot less white-washed than whatever hooey you're about to come up with."

He lifted his head to look at Maggie walking across the parking lot towards them. "What did you tell her?"

"Let me think. Oh yeah, pretty much everything. She listens much better than you."

Amanda turned to look at Sharon. "I'm sorry, Doctor, I should have warned you he's a terrible patient."

"Doctor?" repeated Lee, completely confused now.

"This is Sharon – she stitched you up last night."

"Oh." He peered at Sharon for a moment, trying to process what he thought he could remember from the previous evening. "So we didn't, uh…"

Sharon was laughing but sympathetically. "No, no we didn't."

"Oh, thank God. All I could remember was being in bed with you…" he trailed off, realizing that sounded much worse than he'd intended. He looked down at Amanda, relieved to see her eyes sparkling back at him.

"Honestly Lee, I can't even leave you alone for five minutes, can I?"

Lee groaned, pulling her back close to him. "Please don't leave me again."

"If I haven't left you yet, I'm probably not ever going to do it even with your sordid history of prostitution."

"A-man-da! I was never – "

"Gotcha. Now come back inside and let's get some of these nice medicines into you before you fall over. You're burning up."

"Yes, Dear," he answered meekly and turned back to the house, without letting her go.

.-.

Lee had refused to go back to bed, insisting he was fine, so they had spent the day curled in each other's arms on the couch in Maggie's living room instead. For Amanda, it had to have been one of the most fun days she'd ever spent with him, getting to be just Lee and Amanda with no secrets and no covers, listening to Maggie tell stories from his childhood and teenage years, and watching him squirm when she'd asked Maggie about his time helping at the ranch. When she told him about Billy guessing where they were, and the subsequent mutual blackmail, he'd shouted with laughter.

"He sounds so cocky about it now, but you should have seen him then - he was like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I think he was convinced it was all a horrible prank and the camera crew were going to jump out and Jeanie would find out where he was."

"Really? It seems like he tells her everything."

"He does, but until he got here, he thought I was at an actual ranch, so I'm sure he was sweating buckets that someone would tell her before he could."

Lee and Amanda had both been reduced to helpless laughter when Maggie quipped "I'll send you home with a gift certificate for him for one of our couples' nights."

"Do you have couples' nights?" asked Amanda in an awed tone when she got her breath back.

"What is it with you and the obsession with threesomes?" laughed Lee softly in her ear.

Maggie didn't hear him but answered Amanda. "No, but I'll make something fake up for him if you like."

"Yes please. You don't have t-shirts do you?"

"Actually we do, if you want one. They're for the girls really but the tourists love them."

Amanda looked up at Lee's quizzical look, "You know I always like to bring Francine a little something from our missions and she was so worried about us, she deserves something special. I want to see how long it takes her to figure it out."

"I love the way you think, Mrs. King."

"Speaking of Mrs. King – what kind of stupid idea is getting married without telling anyone?"

Lee raised his eyebrows and looked back and forth between Amanda and Maggie. "Wow, you really did talk a lot while I was out of it, didn't you?"

The rest of the afternoon had been spent arguing the merits of their mystery marriage plan and continuing to trade stories, until the evening's work had begun and Lee and Amanda had withdrawn to their room to get out of everyone's way.

"So we're trapped in a brothel for the night. What do you want to do? Play Scrabble?" Lee had already pulled her close and was working his hands under her shirt.

"From what I've heard about the girl who rents this room, it's entirely possible there's a Scrabble board in here somewhere."

"Really? Let's not find out." He'd gotten her shirt and bra off now and had paused to trace the line of bruises the seatbelt had left during the crash. Kissing his way across the stripe of purple and yellow, he began working on her jeans, meeting very little resistance from Amanda. "We could check the closet for costumes though. You have always promised to show me your cheerleader moves someday."

"Again, I doubt Norma has a cheerleader costume. Although she might have sexy librarian in there."

"No thanks. I've worked hard to get you this undressed. I'd hate to have to start all over again from the beginning."

"So you just want to party, Scarecrow?"

Lee shuddered. "Amanda, that is not a sentence I ever want to hear you say again."

"Never?"

"No, Darling, never."

She gave a low chuckle. "Touché, Ma Chère."

Lee sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled her into his lap. "I still can't believe you didn't actually just leave me here when you realized where I'd brought you."

"I still can't believe you thought I had. I don't care how hard you'd banged your head, how could you think I would leave you?"

"I thought it would be the final straw. Sometimes it seems like every few months, you find out something new about my past and every time it's a little bit worse. Sooner or later, your well of forgiveness and understanding has got to run dry."

"It won't. Except for those times when you insist on seeing the worst in yourself. What exactly am I supposed to be forgiving you for here? Babysitting?"

"Well, when you put it like that…"

"Lee?" She pushed him backwards onto the bed and leaned over him, hands on either side of his head.

He grinned up at her, recognizing the predatory look in her eye. "Yes, Amanda?"

"Take off your belt."

"Yes, Amanda."


	7. A Punctuation Lesson

**We've reached the inevitable M-rated part of our story. As usual, it can be skipped without interfering in any way with the story if you feel firmly about that sort of thing, but again as usual, I think their pillow talk is always a (pardon the pun) revealing part of their relationship. Read at your own risk, and if not, see you in Chapter 8!**

 ***-M-***

She stood up and watched as he did what she'd asked, then helped him slide back out of his jeans as he lay back on the bed. "This is a hell of a lot easier when they're dry," she remarked. "It took two of us to get you out of these last night."

"Oh no," groaned Lee, sitting up and dropping his hands onto his face. "Tell me you're kidding."

"Embarrassed?" grinned Amanda.

"No, I'm not embarrassed," he said in mock exasperation, resting his hands on her hips. "I just can't believe there was finally a threesome and I slept through it!" As she started to giggle, he undid her jeans and pulled them down in one swift movement that left her falling against him. As she leaned on his shoulders and worked at toeing her jeans completely off, he took advantage to put one hand in the small of her back and pull her closer so he could rub his face along her belly, chuckling as she twitched from the tickling sensation of his five o'clock shadow.

"You know, it seems to me that there is a way you could make it up to me for all this," Amanda said in a thoughtful tone. Lee smiled against her skin where he was currently licking his way along the crease at the top of her thigh to her intense enjoyment. He braced himself for whatever mischief she was up to now.

"Yes, my Amanda?"

"Well, you know before you woke up, Maggie told me all about your time working here."

He stopped what he was doing, the air sucked out of his lungs for a moment before he managed to say "All about it?" in a horrified tone.

"Oh yes. All about it. It seemed like it was a very educational time in your life." She could feel him tensing under her hands, and ran her hand along the uninjured side of his head to try and soothe him, even as she went on. "I told her I'd seen enough to confirm it was educational enough for you to have earned a PhD."

He didn't lift his head as he asked, "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Well, that depends on whether Doctor Stetson had any tricks up his sleeve that I haven't seen yet." She felt him relax at the familiar Doctor Stetson joke, and his breath puffed out against her skin as he laughed softly.

"You've seen most of my grad paper already, but there are a few obscure footnotes we could explore if you'd like."

"I think I'd like that very much."

"Well, every good grad paper starts with a basic outline." As he spoke, his hands began to move again, up her back and then down her sides, fingertips skimming her ribs and hip bones, causing her to shiver in anticipation. "And I could start there but now that I think about it, I should probably give you a brief synopsis of the specific punctuation rules I'll be using."

"Punctuation? Really?" She sounded skeptical. "That seems like a pretty dry topic to try and interest the reader with right off the bat."

"Now that's where you're wrong, you see because this system of punctuation is the antithesis of dry." He shifted his legs so that he had one knee between her legs, then lifted one of hers so that her foot was resting on the bed frame. "For instance, take the lowly apostrophe."

"The apostrophe? You're kidding, right?"

"I would never kid about the apostrophe. You see, used in the wrong place it can really annoy people. He pulled her close to him and jabbed his tongue out to rapidly lick her on the spot on her side where he knew she was the most ticklish. In the face of the sudden attack, she squealed and pulled back from him, bending almost double to try and escape his touch. He reached around to grab her derrière and pull her in close again; it was now Amanda who was radiating tension. "See what I mean? Very annoying. But used correctly, it's not annoying at all. In fact some people find a real pleasure in it."

He turned his face into her inner thigh and began giving it slow deliberate vertical licks, moving with each one closer and closer to the top of her leg. Amanda seemed unable to prevent herself from leaning in closer, trying to encourage him to get to his final destination more rapidly. When he finally pulled her against him and slipped his tongue between her swollen lips to flick against the sensitive bud hidden there, she gave a moan of appreciation.

Leaning back to look up at her with a dimpled grin, he murmured "See? Not dry at all. Quite wet, in fact."

"You're right. This is a lot more interesting than I thought. What do you call this type of punctuation?"

"Have you heard of the Borge's phonetic punctuation? This is an oral variation of that. It's been gaining a lot of popularity."

"I can see why. What else you got?" Amanda's voice was already ragged with desire.

"How about the comma? There's a topic that really divides the world into two camps. People really come down hard and fast on one side or the other." As he said 'hard' and 'fast', he'd begun rubbing his thumb quickly and forcefully along her aching flesh, before sliding two fingers inside her. After the initial gasp of pleasure, Amanda's eyes flew open as she realized he wasn't moving anything.

"The comma? What's so interesting about the comma?" Her voice had an edge of desperation to it as she waited to see what he'd do next.

"Well, there's this thing called an Oxford comma, ever heard of it?"

"To be honest, I can barely remember my own name right now so let's say no."

"Okay, so when you have a list of four items, some people think there should only be two commas and some people think there should be three. How many do you think there should be? Would you say apples-comma-oranges-comma-bananas-and-pears? As he recited the sentence, every time he said the word 'comma', he stroked her inner wall. "Or would you say apples-comma-oranges-comma-bananas-comma-and-pears?" he rapidly stroked three times, feeling her beginning to shake with a smile.

"I'm sorry, I'll need that described again. I didn't quite catch it the first time. So it's twice or three times?"

"Yes, which do you prefer?" I'll keep demonstrating while you think about it." He was now stroking her more firmly with every imaginary comma. "Comma, comma" Pause. "Or comma, comma, comma?"

"Just give me a second. I'll be coming… to a decision any second now." Her eyes had closed again and she was leaning more heavily against him with each passing second. To her despair, he slowed to a stop.

"Oh, you don't need to decide now. We haven't even gotten to the semi-colon yet."

"I see what you mean about punctuation driving you crazy. Ok, hurry up and tell me all about the semi-colon."

"A-man-da! You should never rush a semi-colon. They're a restful pause in the middle of two connected thoughts. They should be savoured and enjoyed. They're all the fun of a comma and an apostrophe in a simple dot and curve."

"Oh my god," she squeaked as his fingers began moving in and out of her slowly while he leaned forward to take her flesh between his lips and flicking his tongue against her arousal. When he felt her begin to tighten around his fingers, he pinched his lips around her bud and increased the pressure on it, then braced himself to take her weight as she started to shake and moan his name. He didn't let up with his efforts until he felt her start to fall backwards, eyes rolling back in her head. Hands still around her waist, he fell back on the bed, pulling her onto his body then rolling with her until they were both on their sides, bodies still entangled, both of them panting.

"Wow," was all she managed to gasp out. "That was so much less dull than I thought it was going to be."

"I told you so," said Lee smugly. "Next time I'll explain the pitfalls of the overuse of the exclamation point in a non-exclamatory sentence. And later we can move on to the actual thesis."

"I think it may be entirely possible the exclamation point will be the death of me before we even get to your thesis, Mon Amour."

"I'll go slowly and explain it in very small words, if you like, Morticia." He rolled on top of her so that she could feel his warm length nudging between her thighs.

As she wriggled enthusiastically into a position to grant him access, her eyes locked with his, full of expectant glee. "Slowly sounds good but very small words? What kind of very small words?"

"Just the two really. In." He stopped to kiss her gently once he was fully inside her then moved again. "Out". Another kiss. "And repeat."

"Please do go on, Doctor Stetson. This is riveting."

"Yeah, I feel like I'm really nailing the subject matter." She was gasping agreeably in between giggles. "But maybe we should stop screwing around and get to the nuts and bolts of the matter."

"Should I fasten my seatbelt?" Amanda was right on point despite everything he was doing to distract her. "Some people might think this is tacky."

"Brace yourself. You might want to find an anchor point."

"Whatever you say, Doc. I'm hooked now."

As their movements increased in speed, her hips rising to meet his thrusts in perfect harmony, he called to her, desperate suddenly to see himself in her eyes, to know he was still there. "Amanda!"

Even as she began to tumble into oblivion, she came back to him. Her voice cracked as she completed the call. "Lee."

It was all he needed – lost in her eyes, he let himself let go and tumble with her, unwilling for now to let her leave him alone, even for just a few heartbeats. As he fell, he could feel her pulse beating through him as she breathed into his ear, "I love you. I love you. I love you."


	8. And a Gentleman

It was barely 11 o'clock that night and they were already asleep when the knock came on the door.

"Who the hell would that be?" muttered Lee blearily. "You've got the wrong room! Go away!" he called out in a peeved tone.

"It could be Sharon," murmured Amanda, sleepily. "She said she wanted to check your stitches before she went home tonight."

Lee groaned. "Oh yeah, I forgot. You go back to sleep, I'll be right back." He rolled out of the bed and pulled the covers over Amanda as she curled up, back to the door. The knock came again, a little louder this time. "Ok, ok! Gimme a second to get some clothes on, Sharon!" He was still pulling on his jeans as he opened the door, so only looked up and recoiled when he heard the person on the other side of the door start to speak.

"Jesus Christ, Skip! Was it too much to hope that if I had to find you in a whorehouse, you wouldn't be sampling the wares? Aren't you getting a bit old for this?"

"Sir!" As usual, Lee found himself straightening to attention in the face of his uncle's wrath. "What are you doing here, sir?"

"I'm here because when the Nevada Highway Patrol shows up at your office to tell you your damn fool nephew's car has been found totalled at the bottom of an irrigation canal, you might be excused for being a little concerned! And then when you call your damn fool nephew's boss to find out what's going on and he won't tell you anything except that your still damn fool nephew is hiding out somewhere with a head injury that's serious enough to keep him from travelling, you might get a little more concerned! But of course I should have known I needn't have worried about you at all because just like usual, you have managed to do nothing more than end up flat on your back in bed with some whore who's probably half your age!" His uncle's voice had been rising in volume throughout his rant.

Panic-stricken, Lee turned to look at Amanda and realized she had remained hidden under the covers, but he could tell she was shaking with laughter.

"It's not what it looks like, Sir! I can explain!"

Colonel Clayton's face reflected a mixture of relief at finding Lee was alright and anger at the circumstances he'd found him in. "I don't need to hear any of your old excuses, Skip. I had hoped when you tried to make me believe you were dating Amanda King that it was a sign you were growing up enough to at least pretend your girlfriends weren't bimbos anymore but apparently I'm doomed to disappointment again. Would it be so hard to just settle down with a nice woman like that?"

Lee knew that he was just standing there with his mouth open but found himself unable to summon up a quick defence. He took in a deep breath, searching for words then watched the expression on his uncle's face change as his gaze was drawn to movement on the bed.

"Thank you for that vote of confidence, Colonel, but I happen to think your nephew has grown up just fine."

Lee had to admit there was a certain satisfaction in watching the expression on his uncle's face change from anger to confusion to shock to embarrassment, all in a matter of seconds, but before either of them could say anything else, Maggie suddenly appeared at Colonel Clayton's elbow.

"I hate to interrupt such a touching family reunion but do you think you two could take this somewhere else? I'm trying to run a business here and you're kind of wrecking the mood."

Colonel Clayton dragged his eyes away from Amanda who was now sitting up on the bed, wrapped in a sheet and cleared his throat with embarrassment. "Sorry Maggie. You're right – this is no place for family arguments." He turned back to Lee and jabbed a finger in his direction. "Get some more clothes on; I'll be in the kitchen." He turned and marched off stiffly down the hall leaving a stunned Lee and a giggling Amanda in his wake.

Maggie grinned at him and came closer to say in a conspiratorial tone, "The private quarters are pretty soundproof but try to keep the bellowing down to a minimum, will ya?" before heading back to the front desk.

Lee slowly closed the door and then began looking around for the rest of his clothes. "How the hell did he find me here? I can't believe Billy told him where we were. You're not going to leave me alone with him are you?"

Amanda was still smiling as she began to collect her own clothes and dress more slowly. "You go ahead and I'll be there in a second. And Lee, keep in mind he's angry because he was worried about you."

"That doesn't even make sense, Amanda. He's just mad that he thinks I'm living up to his complete lack of expectations in me."

"No, it makes perfect sense. Look, do you remember the day I went to talk to Cheryl Barrett when Serdeych was trying to frame Paul?"

Lee stopped dead and looked up from where he was sitting pulling on his socks. "Yeah, so?"

"Do you remember yelling at me to go home and stay there?" She waited for him to nod before going on. "You weren't mad at me for being there, were you? You were mad because I'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time and it could have been me, right?"

"Yes, I guess so" he admitted grudgingly.

"Well, keep that in mind before you start letting him get under your skin. I'm going to let him get over being embarrassed about me being here before I go in there, so try and be nice. He was obviously worried and he's come here all the way from Nellis and that's got to be at least an eight hour drive so he's tired."

"I'd still like to know why Billy told him where we were and didn't warn us he was coming."

As Lee stomped out of the room, Amanda held back from pointing out the more interesting questions were how the colonel obviously not only knew Maggie but how he also knew where the kitchen was.

Those questions still hadn't occurred to Lee when he found his uncle standing staring out the window in Maggie's living room, absentmindedly stroking Bandit's head as the dog lolled against his legs. He slipped into the room and closed the door quietly behind him and took a deep breath. "Can I get you a cup of coffee or something to eat, Uncle Robert? It's a long drive from Las Vegas – you must be tired."

Colonel Clayton turned around, looking relieved that the conversation was going to start more calmly than the last one. "Coffee would be great," he answered gruffly. He watched as Lee moved around the kitchen efficiently, making him up a cup but also pulling out a package of cookies and putting them on the table.

"Sorry, it looks like Maggie doesn't have coffee creamer, only milk."

"That's fine – milk's healthier anyway," answered his uncle.

"That's what Amanda always tells me too," Lee smiled as he watched his uncle start to flush again.

"Yeah, uh, speaking of Amanda… I'm sorry about all that." The colonel waved his hand in the direction of the hallway. He looked more uncomfortable than Lee had ever seen him. "I jumped to conclusions as usual. I'll apologize to her as well if she's even still talking to me."

"Given the setting, it was a pretty reasonable conclusion to jump to." Lee couldn't help laughing as he took pity on his uncle. "And if she forgave me for dragging her in here in the first place, she'll be just fine with you. She'll be along in a minute – she's just giving us both time to blow off steam."

"Huh. Told you she was a nice woman."

"No one knows that better than me." Lee paused, sipping at his own coffee, before saying, "I'm sorry about the police visit. I'd forgotten you were posted so close by and would show up on the local database. Did Billy tell you where we were?"

Colonel Clayton snorted. "No, of course he didn't. You spooks and your secrets – everything is all need-to-know even when you're dealing with family. It's ridiculous. He just said you were near Reno recovering from a serious injury and that you were with friends, so I figured you'd come here again."

Lee looked at him through narrowed eyes. "And how did you know 'here' was here?" The questions Amanda had already thought of finally began to occur to him. "And how do you know Maggie?"

His uncle cleared his throat and answered the second question first, "Well, I've known her as long as you have, Skip. She and Tommy Michaels were always underfoot when you were in high school."

"But how did you know she was _here_?" Lee asked with increasing suspicion. "And what did you mean by 'again'?"

"I've known she was _here_ since two weeks after you brought her here in twenty years ago. And I know this is where you spent all those months licking your wounds ten years ago when you tried to drink yourself to death instead of just coming home!" His uncle's tone of voice was increasing in volume along with Lee's. Neither of them noticed that Amanda and Maggie had come in quietly and were leaning on the far wall observing them.

Lee was almost struck dumb by his uncle's answer. "You what?"

"I knew something was up that summer you were 17, although you certainly weren't about to tell me about it. I'd probably still be in the dark if Betty hadn't come to me."

"Who the hell is Betty?"

"Maggie's mother. She came to talk to me just after the two of you left to drive out here. She was distraught about Maggie's dad throwing her out and he wouldn't let her contact her mother or vice versa. She wanted to know if I'd heard from you and there was me, thinking you were just off on a camping trip. I should have learned by then you were never where you said you were going to be."

"I can't believe you never said anything about any of this." Lee was astounded by the story his uncle was telling him.

The colonel shrugged. "I figured you'd tell me eventually but you never did. I guess I probably brought that on myself – we never did very well at the man-to-man talks did we?" He looked regretful at the thought. "Anyway, I agreed to be a post office of sorts between Betty and Maggie. Betty came to our quarters to phone her and Maggie sent all her mail to me to be passed along. I really wanted to just go thump some sense into Chuck Field but Betty begged me not to. She said it would just cause her more trouble at home. And along with being the post office and the local telephone exchange, occasionally I'd drive Betty out here to visit if Chuck was out of town."

He stopped and gave a bark of laughter. "I'm sure there were people at Beale who were convinced we were sneaking around – there's not a lot of secrets on an air force base. Eventually, I got posted out of there and that was pretty much the end of it except for still being the go-between for the odd letter here and there."

"But why? Why did you do any of it? None of it was anything to do with you."

His uncle raised a brow and looked across the kitchen at him. "Same reason you did, of course. Maggie was obviously important to you, even if you weren't going to tell me about it."

Just at that moment, the back door opened and Julie came in, slinging her backpack down on the floor as she came in. Seeing the two men, she walked over and kissed the colonel on the cheek before walking to the fridge. "Hi Dad! Hi Uncle Bob! When did you get here? Sorry I haven't written to thank you for my Christmas present yet."

"That's alright. You've always been prompt up until now – I think I can give you a pass at least once since you're busy with your university courses." The colonel seemed genuinely pleased to see Julie.

Amanda could see the flush creeping up the back of Lee's neck and the tic starting in his cheek and started forward to try and calm him down before Maggie grabbed her by the arm. "Don't worry. It's fine," she whispered. "Let them figure it out."

Lee suddenly saw everything clearly. "Oh my god, you think she's mine! You've been helping Maggie out for twenty years because you think Julie's my daughter!"

Julie snapped upright from behind the fridge door and looked back and forth between the two men. "Uh, what's going on?"

"Nothing!" answered both men in unison. She looked over and caught her mother's eye who tossed her head in the direction of the bedrooms and following the hint, Julie edged her way back out of the kitchen. Neither man said anything, too busy bristling to notice her departure.

"Well, despite everything you've done over the years, I actually don't think that!"

"Oh right!" sneered Lee, pushing off the counter he'd been leaning on and starting to pace around the room. "You've been sending a complete stranger Christmas presents and letting her call you Uncle Bob for absolutely no reason for almost twenty years! No wonder you've been riding my ass my whole life. You think I'm just an irresponsible screw-up and you didn't even ask me if it was true. You just assumed it was because that's how you've always thought of me – Skip Stetson, the diaper duty you got stuck with!"

By now, the colonel was standing with his fists clenched at his sides, equally as flushed as Lee. For the first time, Amanda could see the family resemblance between them.

"Now just a damn minute! You are my family! I was _never_ stuck with you!" The colonel started shouting louder than anyone Amanda had ever heard in her life.

"Your soundproofing is certainly getting a workout tonight" she murmured to Maggie.

"I know – I wish I'd known, I could have sold tickets," Maggie whispered back. Stifling laughs, they looked back to see the colonel stalk over to stand in front of Lee, preventing him from pacing anywhere else.

"I may not have known what the hell I was doing trying to raise a seven year old boy whose answer to everything was 'no' but I know one thing for damn sure and that is that unlike Tommy Michaels, my boy would never have abandoned a sixteen year old girl if he'd gotten her pregnant, especially after her idiot father had kicked her out of the house! So no, damn it, I never thought Julie was yours, not for even a single second!"

Lee was standing in stunned silence by the end of his uncle's rant. "Your boy?" he finally spluttered out.

His uncle took a step backwards as if he'd realized he might have gone too far. "I'm sorry, Lee. You were always Matt's boy, but you were as close as I was ever going to get to having a child of my own. Maybe just as well since I seem to have managed to do nothing but aggravate you your whole life." His shoulders had slumped as he talked.

Lee felt like the breath had been knocked out of him. He turned to look at Amanda, mutely asking for help. With relief, he watched her push off from the wall and walk forward, stopping to put her hand on his arm. He could feel the calm creeping over him just from her touch.

"Now, Colonel, that's not true. Small boys don't grow up to be decent men with a sense of integrity and duty without the proper guidance. Lee may have kicked over the traces occasionally but he has never been a bad person, and that's all down to you."

Colonel Clayton stared at her quietly for a moment before looking back at Lee. "No, he wasn't," he agreed finally. "But I'm still not sure how much I had to do with that."

"She's right" said Lee suddenly. He started to laugh. "She's always right on this stuff. I fought you from day one because you weren't my parents and you still managed to drag me up without me ending up in jail or worse. I could have turned out like Tommy Michaels, but I didn't." He stopped and looked around to see if Julie was still in earshot. Seeing that she wasn't, he leaned in and said quietly "Did you know he got five years for insider trading?"

"Yeah, I heard that." His uncle began to relax, recognizing that Lee had started to calm down with Amanda present. "Never been so happy to hear about anything in my life."

"Me too. One of the best cases I ever worked on." Lee's smile snuck out irrepressibly.

"You didn't!" said his uncle in an awed tone.

"Well, he did it. I just helped make sure he paid for it" answered Lee in a satisfied tone.

"And we're all very grateful for your service," said Maggie finally moving forward to join the conversation. "Can we assume this is all going to be a lot quieter from now on?"

The two men looked so equally abashed at the question that Amanda had to stifle a giggle again.

"Fine then," said Maggie, taking their silence as compliance. She glanced at the abandoned mugs on the kitchen table. "Colonel, have you had anything to eat since you got here or did Lee just feed you coffee and cookies?"

"I offered. He didn't want anything else," muttered Lee defensively.

"Well, he'll have something now. Yes, Julie, it's safe to come back out now." She had turned to where her daughter was peeking out, emboldened by the sudden silence that had descended on the room. "Go put some of those meatloaf and mashed potato leftovers in the microwave for Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob, go sit down – you look exhausted. Lee, go get his stuff out of his car and take it into my spare room. Good thing you and Amanda already took over Norma's room since it looks like we've got a full house. Amanda, can I get you anything? Snake bite? Nerve tonic?" Her eyes met Amanda's, full of mischief.

"A cup of tea would be lovely, Maggie." Amanda was having a very hard time not laughing in the face of how quickly everyone else in the room was racing to obey Maggie's gentle orders. She moved across the room and lowered herself gracefully to sit beside Colonel Clayton on the sofa.

He looked at her with an embarrassed expression, the memory of their first meeting of the night flooding back to him. "Amanda, I owe you an apology. If I'd realized it was you earlier, I never would have…" He stopped as she laid a hand on his arm.

"Colonel, it's fine. I know you were just worried about Lee. There's nothing quite like that rage that comes over you when you realize your child just escaped injury through no fault of their own, is there?"

He looked relieved in the face of her understanding smile. "No, there isn't. One of the angriest I ever got at Lee was when he walked out into a crosswalk and almost got hit by someone driving by." He gave a deep sigh of exhaustion. "When the patrol officer showed up this morning, all I could think was how I'd finally managed to fail Matt. And then when Billy Melrose clammed up, all I could think was how I should never have let Lee follow in his father's footsteps and get himself killed in the same stupid way." He looked up at Amanda's choke of laughter.

"I can't believe you still think you ever 'let' Lee do anything."

Despite himself, Robert found himself starting to laugh. "I don't suppose I did. Does he listen to you?"

"I've been known to" said Lee unexpectedly, coming in the back door with his uncle's overnight bag. "Like I said, she's usually right about most things."

Robert looked up at Lee and stared with wonder at the tender expression on his face as he smiled at Amanda, hand held out to take hers. She was smiling back at him with the identical look on her face, brown eyes meeting hazel ones in a moment of silent communication. For the first time, he noticed the sparkling ring on Amanda's hand and relaxed back against the sofa cushions and smiled to himself. His boy was going to be just fine.


	9. A Song and A Dance

Amanda was having difficulty getting a word in edgewise with her mother. Even from the bathroom, Lee could hear Dotty's voice, obviously asking question after question but barely letting Amanda answer anything properly.

"No, Mother, I'm perfectly fine…No, Mother, Lee's fine too... Just some stitches on his head… Someone accidentally swung a camera boom at him in the dark… No, we're not in Reno, Mother, we're at a kind of boarding house about thirty miles away… No, it's just a little country place… No, we haven't secretly eloped, Mother."

Lee inhaled a mouthful of toothpaste and began coughing it out all over the mirror before he looked around the bathroom door with wide eyes. Amanda grinned and waved at him to calm down.

"No, that's Las Vegas, Mother. People don't elope to Reno. Reno is where you go to get the quickie divorce… Yes, like Lana Turner and Rita Hayworth… Well, we're going to stay a few days more. Lee has family here – his uncle came up to stay at the boarding house and visit as well and we thought we'd take advantage to get some extra footage… What? My vacation? Not until the second week of February, why?"

There was a long pause while Dotty described something excitedly to her. Lee could see Amanda's eyes getting wider and wider then her head dropped so that she was staring onto her lap, the flush rising on her face. He ducked his head, trying to catch her eye to try and see if she was upset about something, but she kept twisting away, obviously avoiding looking at him, until finally he gave up. He assumed he'd find out when she got off the phone and went back to brushing his teeth, half-listening to Amanda's side of the conversation.

"That's marvellous Mother. I can't believe he won it either. Oh yes, I absolutely think it calls for a new dress, Mother. Really? A limousine too? It sounds like it will be quite the night. Yes I'll absolutely be home by then, I promise. Yes, tell Jamie I'll bring him a real desert cactus. Yes I can – they sell them in the tourist shops. Okay, Mother, I'll talk to you tomorrow when I have our flights booked home. Bye- bye, love you too."

He walked out of the bathroom just as Amanda hung up the phone and then dropped her head in her hands and began rocking back and forth on the bed. It took Lee a few beats to decide it was laughter not sobs. He leaned on the door frame and waited for her to catch her breath.

Finally she looked up and smiled at his questioning look. "We have to be home by Friday night, Mother has a date."

"Must be quite the date – did you say limousine?" He started to smile – he could see the laughter was bubbling back up.

"Curt won the grand prize at the Aerodrome annual fundraiser." Lee raised an eyebrow and waited for her to go on. "Limousine for the evening. Dinner for two at Jefferson's in Georgetown. Tickets for the National Theater."

"That sounds great, but what aren't you telling me?"

"Guess what's playing?"

"Pavarotti? Chippendale dancers? I have no idea – just put me out of my misery already." He knew she was bursting to tell him and indeed it was only a matter of seconds before she started to whoop with laughter and told him.

"A revival of 'The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'!"

"Really? We should get tickets!" He looked genuinely excited even as he laughed along with her.

"You're kidding, right? A dirty weekend in an actual whorehouse wasn't enough for you?" Amanda couldn't hide her amusement at the idea.

"Amanda – haven't you ever seen it? It has our song in it!"

"Since when do we have a song?"

"Since this week." Lee held out his hand, pulled her to her feet and began whirling her in a two-step around the limited floor space, singing,

" _You know, I like a thrill that has no strings  
Friendship that don't ever change  
And laughter from the joy of things  
And sneakin' around with you_"

"You're making that up! There's no way that's really a song."

"Oh it gets better, ma chère." He launched into the next verses,

" _I like drive-in picture shows  
Kissin' long and lovin' slow  
Secret places lovers go  
Whenever they're sneakin' around_

 _Ooh I like the crazy things we try_  
 _And the sexy things we fantasize_  
 _Just makin' out in the broad daylight_  
 _And sneakin' around with you"_

"How do you know all the words?" asked Amanda, hooting with laughter now.

"Everybody who ever worked in a brothel knows all the words to this song, I guarantee it. It's like a professional theme song. I treated Maggie and Julie to a trip to New York when it was first on Broadway just to see it," Lee was not very surreptitiously working her t-shirt out of the waistband of her jeans even as he continued to swing her around.

"That was very sweet of you, but you know you can't actually sing, right?" asked Amanda, helpfully tugging at his shirt as well.

"Even if that hurtful comment were true, it never stopped Rex Harrison. Or Burt Reynolds for that matter."

As he finally managed to free her shirt and pull it over her head, she stuck a pointed finger up against his chest. "Hang on a second, if you're Burt Reynolds, does that make me Dolly Parton?"

Lee stopped mid-step, unable to resist looking down before looking back up to meet her laughing eyes. When she tilted her head and raised one brow, he pulled her back in close and began dancing again. "I'm pleading the Fifth, Ma'am".

"Oh, you are in big trouble now, buster!" She made a half-hearted attempt to escape the circle of his arms while he continued to sing.

 _"Sneakin' around with you_  
 _Keepin' it all brand new_  
 _Gettin' the best of you_  
 _Whenever we're sneakin' around_  
 _Sneakin' around, that's all_  
 _I'm gonna lay down the law_  
 _Watchin' the rise and fall_  
 _An' lovin' our sneakin' around_  
 _We're just sneakin' around_  
 _Aw, we're just sneakin'"_

As he reached the end of the song, he fell back on the bed, pulling her down on top of him.

"After that last comment, I'm not sure I'm going to go along with whatever you think is going to happen next." She was caressing his cheek however, unable as usual to resist reaching out to run her thumbs over his dimples.

"I don't know why you'd be upset. You know what they say." Lee had snapped her bra clasp by now and was busily kissing his way along her collarbone. She could feel him smiling against her skin.

"What do they say?" she asked in mock suspicion.

"More than a handful is waste!"

Amanda gave a gasp of annoyance and punched him in the shoulder. "You're lucky I love you, Mr. Stetson"

Lee stopped to lift his head and look into her eyes. "Believe me, my Amanda, nobody has to tell me how lucky I am."

 **SMK-SMK-SMK**

All rights reserved for "Sneakin around", Carol Hall, Larry L. King, Peter Masterson.


End file.
